10 things you might not know about Russia

Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer

Russia is in the spotlight — hosting the Winter Olympics, exerting its influence in Ukraine and defending its crackdown on gays against international criticism. So let's wrestle the Russian bear, best of 10 rounds:

1 The Soviet Union at its height covered nearly one-sixth of Earth's land surface and was larger than the United States, Canada and Mexico combined. And while Russia is 2 million square miles smaller than that, it is still huge. Consider: If the westernmost tip of Russia were plopped on Los Angeles, and the country unrolled like a giant carpet, it would cross the continental U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean, roll over France, Germany, Austria and not run out till it got to Hungary.

2 Ivan the Terrible, the iron-fisted 16th-century ruler who was the first to officially take the title czar of all Russia, was indeed terrible from any modern viewpoint, torturing enemies and countrymen alike, and killing his son in an uncontrolled rage. But that's not what his nickname is referencing. His moniker — based on the Russian word grozny — is more accurately rendered as fearsome or formidable.

3 Vodka and cigarettes are among the culprits for a 12-year gap in life expectancies between men and women in Russia — 76 years for women and 64 for men. Russian men live shorter lives than those in North Korea, Indonesia and Bangladesh. (In the U.S., average life spans are 81 for women, 76 for men.)

4 The surface area of Lake Baikal in Siberia is only about half as big as that of Lake Michigan, yet Baikal is so deep it holds one-fifth of the world's freshwater, about as much as the five Great Lakes combined.

5 In fall 1863, as the U.S. was embroiled in the Civil War, the Russian navy without warning sailed warships into the Northern ports of New York and San Francisco. Did it spark a panic? No, it was the occasion for extravagant parties. Before the Soviets were the Evil Empire, the Russians were America's fast friends. The fleets stayed the winter, and the strong show of support from a major European power was thought at the time to end talk of British or French intervention on the side of the Confederacy. It was later learned that the Russians, fearing an imminent fight of their own with Britain or France, needed to find a safe place to stow their warships.

6 Writer Vladimir Nabokov said he was raised in Russia as "a perfectly normal trilingual child" — speaking Russian, English and French — and initially was better at English than Russian. He wrote his most famous novel, "Lolita," in English, and translated it into Russian. A lover of wordplay, Nabokov created character names Vivian Darkbloom and Blavdak Vinomori using anagrams of his own name.

7 American-Russian culture clashes were common during the Cold War. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev visited Los Angeles in 1959, he was told he could not stop at Disneyland because of security concerns. That set off a Khrushchev rant: "What is it? Do you have rocket launching pads there? ... What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera there or something? Or have gangsters taken over the place that can destroy me? Then what must I do? Commit suicide?" (In Khrushchev's defense, it is difficult to understand why he was barred from the park; other world leaders were allowed to go there.)

8 Before the Soviets shocked the world by winning gold at the 1954 World Ice Hockey Championships and the 1956 Winter Olympics in Italy, they were nonentities in international hockey. How did they do it? A full-press national effort — and plenty of people who played bandy. That popular Russian sport is a mix of field hockey and soccer played on ice. The huge playing field requires great skaters, crisp passing and teamwork. In other words, Soviet-style hockey.

9 Lots of phrases used by Americans come from Russian names. There's the Molotov cocktail, a firebomb named by the Finns to ridicule Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. There's the fakery known as the Potemkin village, a phrase based on a tale about Russian official Grigori Potemkin building make-believe towns along Catherine the Great's travel route. Then there's Mikhail Kalashnikov's rifle. Not to mention Pavlov's dog, a reference to physiologist Ivan Pavlov's experiments with conditioned reflexes in canines. Also, the pavlova is a meringue dessert named after ballerina Anna Pavlova. And let's not forget diplomat Paul Stroganoff's beloved dinner, beef stroganoff.

10 Russian leader Vladimir Putin sang the Fats Domino song "Blueberry Hill" at a children's charity event in St. Petersburg in 2010.

Mark Jacob is a deputy metro editor at the Tribune; Stephan Benzkofer is the newspaper's weekend editor.

SOURCES: snopes.com; geology.com; CIA Factbook; "Encyclopedia of World Geography," edited by Peter Haggett; "Encyclopedia of Ecology"; "World Book Encyclopedia"; "Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English," edited by Olive Classe; "A New Dictionary of Eponyms," edited by Morton S. Freeman; "What Caesar Did for My Salad" by Albert Jack; "Russia and the United States" by Nikolai V. Sivachev and Nikolai N. Yakovlev; "Russia's Life-saver: Lend-lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II" by Albert Loren Weeks; "Magicians on Ice: The Story of the Single Greatest Hockey Dynasty of All Time" by Timothy J. Thompson; The New York Times; Chicago Tribune; London Sunday Times